History of the Wars of the French Revolution Vol II. by Edward Baines

$250.00 NZD

Category: World Military History

Antarctica : The complete story by David McGonigal

$125.00 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

This edition is out of print. Antarctica has a reputation for being cold, isolated, and often desolate. Yet the ice (which covers 99 percent of the continent's surface) gives rise to spectacular scenery, and supports an astonishing variety of wildlife. In the early 1900s, heroic pioneers set out to disc over this last frontier. One hundred years later, adventure tourists, arriving in cruise ships, are once again discovering this amazing land. It is a fragile environment, despite its harshness, and ecologists are concerned about the damaged ozone layer, watching for signs of change that may affect the whole planet. This comprehensive book looks at the landscape, the wildlife, the explorers, the people today, and the future. With more than a thousand superb photographs, Antarctica will fascinate everyone who is interested in this unique area. ** With accompanying CD ROM ** Hardback Condition Very good  ...Show more

The Crossing of Antarctica by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary

$22.50 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

Medieval People: From Charlemagne to Piero della Francesca by Michael Prestwich

$24.99 NZD

Category: World History

This engrossing and often witty account tells the life stories of nearly 70 individuals who made the Middle Ages. There are kings and queens, popes and politicians, soldiers and merchants, scholars, authors and visionaries. They range from the important, such as El Cid or Frederick Barbarossa, to the li ttle known, such as the dissolute Venetian nun Clara Sanuto. Some were astonishingly successful: the empire created by Chinggis Khan was one of the most extensive ever seen. Some, such as Charles the Bold, the over-ambitious 15th-century duke of Burgundy, were failures. Contrary to modern myth, medieval people did not believe the earth was flat; torture was far less common than in later centuries; and technological advances included guns, printing, blast furnaces, spectacles, stirrups and the compass. Full of insights such as these, this book shows how medieval people lived in an era that was more one of invention and innovation than of superstition and backwardness. It will appeal to all those who want a truer picture of a world often erroneously portrayed by bestselling novelists of today. ...Show more

The White Ribbon: A Medallic Record of British Polar Expeditions by Neville Poulsom

$95.00 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

A Geographical Dictionary: Second Edition (1691) by Edmund Bohun

$2000.00 NZD

Category: World History

Kennedy Curse by James Patterson

$24.00 NZD

Category: World History

JAMES PATTERSON'S MASTERPIECE ________________________________ Kennedys were always taught to win at all costs. And they did - but the costs were unimaginable... Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel. Their name is syn onymous with American royalty. Their commitment to public service is legendary. But, for all the successes, the family has been blighted by assassinations, fatal accidents, drug and alcohol abuse and sex scandals. To this day, the Kennedys occupy a unique, contradictory place in the world's imagination- at once familiar and unknowable; charmed and cursed. The Kennedy Curse is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most famous family, as told by the world's most trusted storyteller. ________________________________ 'When I wrote my first novel after several non-fiction works about politics, James Patterson lovingly lambasted me for infringing on his thriller territory. Now I know how he feels as he crosses into non-fiction politics with this juicy and entertaining look at a political family that continues to wield power and influence. He's too good - it isn't fair!' JAKE TAPPER, CNN anchor and author of The Hellfire Club ...Show more

Antarctic Atlas: A Continent in 70 Maps by Peter Fretwell

$70.00 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

Remote, evocative and romantic, the frozen continent holds a unique place in the psyche of humanity. It is a world apart. Separated geographically from warmer lands by the cold and tumultuous waters of the Southern Ocean and separated in our mind by just as wide a chasm. Antarctica is different to other continents; it has never been permanently inhabited and has no native population. Many parts of the interior are still pristine; a rare quality on this ever more sanitized and urbanized planet, and although becoming rarer, there are still a few places where human feet have never trod, vistas that no eye has yet seen. Peter Fretwell's pioneering maps reveal every knowable facet of this isolated land, from the life of an iceberg to the adventures of penguins and albatrosses, from drowning coasts to unimaginable blizzards, deep water conveyors and the realities of the not-so-distant future. ...Show more

Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States by David Hackett Fischer

$37.50 NZD

Category: World History

Fairness and Freedom compares the history of two open societies--New Zealand and the United States--with much in common. Both have democratic polities, mixed-enterprise economies, individuated societies, pluralist cultures, and a deep concern for human rights and the rule of law. But all of these elemen ts take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America's Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand's Southern Cross. Fischer asks why these similar countries went different ways. Both were founded by English-speaking colonists, but at different times and with disparate purposes. They lived in the first and second British Empires, which operated in very different ways. Indians and Maori were important agents of change, but to different ends. On the American frontier and in New Zealand's Bush, material possibilities and moral choices were not the same. Fischer takes the same comparative approach to parallel processes of nation-building and immigration, women's rights and racial wrongs, reform causes and conservative responses, war-fighting and peace-making, and global engagement in our own time--with similar results. On another level, this book expands Fischer's past work on liberty and freedom. It is the first book to be published on the history of fairness. And it also poses new questions in the old tradition of history and moral philosophy. Is it possible to be both fair and free? In a vast array of evidence, Fischer finds that the strengths of these great values are needed to correct their weaknesses. As many societies seek to become more open--never twice in the same way, an understanding of our differences is the only path to peace. ...Show more

The Popes: A History by John Julius Norwich

$45.00 NZD

Category: World History

Well known for his histories of Norman Sicily, Venice, the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean, John Julius Norwich has now turned his attention to the oldest continuing institution in the world, tracing the papal line down the centuries from St Peter himself - traditionally (though by no means histo rically) the first pope - to the present Benedict XVI. Of the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unques-tionably been saints; others have wallowed in unspeakable iniquity. One was said to have been a woman - and an English woman at that - her sex being revealed only when she improvidently gave birth to a baby during a papal procession. Pope Joan never existed (though the Church long believed she did) but many genuine pontiffs were almost as colourful: Formosus, for example, whose murdered corpse was exhumed, clothed in pontifical vestments, propped up on a throne and subjected to trial; or John XII of whom Gibbon wrote: 'his rapes of virgins and widows deterred female pilgrims from visiting the shrine of St Peter'. Others earned respect, including Leo the Great who protected Rome from the Huns and the Goths, and Gregory the Great who struggled manfully with the emperor for supremacy. After calamitous crusades, and 70-year exile in Avignon, came the larger-than-life pontiffs of the Renassiance - the Borgias and the Medicis ('God has given us the papacy; let us now enjoy it'). Pius VII had to contend with Napoleon, Pius IX to steer the papacy through the storm of the Risorgimento. John Julius Norwich brings the story up-to-date with lively investigations into the anti-semitism of the contemptible Pius XII, the possible murder of John Paul I and the phenomenon of the Polish John Paul II. From here the glories of the Byznatium to the decay of Rome, from the Albigensian Heresy to sexual misbehaviour within the Church today, the pace never slackens. John Julius Norwich, an agnostic with no religious axe to grind, has a thrilling and important tale to tell - and in this rich, authoritative book he does it full justice. ...Show more

Everest - The First Ascent: The Untold Story of Griffith Pugh, the Man Who Made it Possible by Harriet Tuckey

$27.50 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

Marking the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest in May 1953, "Everest - The First Ascent" tells the story of the doctor and physiologist Griffith Pugh, without whom the successful conquest of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay would not have been possible. Recruited as an advisor i n 1952, Pugh battled for fifteen months - in the face of opposition, suspicion and ridicule - to revolutionise almost every aspect of British high-altitude mountaineering, transforming the approach to oxygen, clothing, boots, tents, air beds, fitness, hygiene, health-care, diet and acclimatisation. The results were a stunning success and opened the door to the golden age of Himalayan climbing. Pugh's techniques are still in use today, yet he has never enjoyed popular credit for his work. Written by Pugh's daughter, Harriet Tuckey, "Everest - The First Ascent" also charts the personal story of her own, and her mother's, relationship with this fiercely independent, troubled, abrasive and eccentric man, as she seeks to uncover the achievements of his controversial career. ...Show more

Scott of the Antarctic by David Crane

$22.50 NZD

Category: Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic

David Crane has given us the definitive biography of one of Britain's greatest heroes and explorers. 'It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more...For God's sake look after our people.' These were the final words written in Scott's diary on 29 March 1912, as he lay dying in his tent with Birdi e Bowers and Edward Wilson. Oates had taken himself into a blizzard a few days before, and the fifth member of the Polar party, Edgar Evans, had died some ten days previously, worn out by the cold and physical effort of the journey across Antarctica. Since then Scott has been the subject of many books - many hagiographical, others dismissive and scathing. Yet in all the pages that have been written about him, the personality behind the legend has been forgotten or distorted beyond all recognition. David Crane's magisterial biography, based on years of close and detailed research with the original documents, redresses this completely. By reassessing Scott's life and his substantial scientific achievements, Crane is able to provide a fresh and exciting perspective on both the Discovery expedition of 1901-4 and the Terra Nova expedition of 1910-12. The courage and tragedy of Scott's last journey are only one part of the process, for the scientific enquiry that led up to it transformed the whole nature and ambition of Antarctic exploration. Scott's own voice echoes through the pages. His descriptions of the monumental landscape of Antarctica in all its fatal and icy beauty are breathtaking; his honest, heartfelt letters and diaries give the reader an unforgettable account of the challenges he faced both in his personal life and as a superlative leader of men in possibly the harshest environment on the planet. Written with the full support of Scott's surviving relatives, this definitive biography sets out to reconcile the very private struggles of the man with the very public life of extremes that he led. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version. ...Show more